The First Days of Class

Before I start telling about how the first two days of class went I just want to say that I love doing this.

OK, that being said, I observed my first class last night, and then I observed two more today. Also, I now have my very own office and computer with internet. I still can´t get internet with my laptop, but at least now I will have a place where I can use it whenever I am here. Yesterday evening I went to class with Estela, the woman I am staying with. It was pretty cool, but I mostly sat and listened and observed. I did get to read some paragraphs so that the students could hear a native speaker, so that was pretty neat. They were architecture students and they were practicing using the past tense. But I didn´t participate very much. Overall it was a good first class.

Today I had two classes that I observed. The first was with a woman named Alejandra. In this class they were accounting students and they were learning how to describe things. It was very basic descriptive English. They were shown pictures and then they had so describe the people in the pictures, what they looked like, what they were doing, what their habits were, things like that. I got to lead part of the class discussion, so I enjoyed that.

The second class I was in was my favorite so far because I got to participate the most. This class was taught by Ximena and it was also for accounting students. They were learning the same things as in the other accounting class. The class started by me introducing myself. The they took turns asking me questions. This was actually more like Ximena calling on students and telling them to ask me questions. Most of them were very shy about this. I think this was because they were nervous to be talking to a native speaker. It was fun though, but I´m not sure how much they all were able to understand. The reason Ximena wants me to work in this class is because she just started teaching it and they are behind where they should be. So it will be a very interesting challenge. I could tell that they were nervous to have me there at first, but as the class progressed they got more comfortable with the idea. As they wrote down descriptions of thepictures they brought they asked me if they were doing it correctly. So I was being used a lot and I really liked it. Finally, in the last ten minutes of class, Ximena told them that they could speak Spanish to me. So I got to practice my spanish some. It was an interesting experience. There I was, standing at the back of the class, whith twenty Chilean students, in their early twenties, standing around me in a semi-circle... all speaking spanish. It was a bit overwhelming but I think it really helped them. I think it was very good for them to see me struggle with their language. Hopefully this showed them that it´s ok if they don´t have a command of English yet. I´m hoping that this will make them much more comfortable in the future. I will be meeting witht he same group tomorrow morning, so it will be interesting to see how they react. I will also be working with this group for the rest of the time I am here. With any luck they will get comfortable enough with me that they will be able to experiment with English and learn a lot more. I also think it was good for them to see that English is something that they can use to communicate with. It´s not just a theoretical language they have to learn, but something they can really use. We´ll see how it goes.

Overall I think this was a very good first couple of days. It has reaffirmed my decision to become a teacher and I am very excited to continue working with all of these students. Now, I´m off to find some food. Adios